choed Eleanor, who caught the exclamation: "he
comes to save me."

"Remember your oath," gasped a dying voice. "He is no longer yours."

"Alas! alas!" sobbed Eleanor, tremblingly.

A moment afterwards a faint clapping of hands reached the ears of
Barbara.

"All is over," muttered she.

"Ha!" exclaimed Alan Rookwood, with a frightful look. "Is it done?"

Barbara motioned him towards the further end of the vault.

_CHAPTER XIII_

_MR. COATES_

_Grimm._ Look, captain, here comes one of the bloodhounds of justice.

_Schw._ Down with him. Don't let him utter a word.

_Moor._ Silence, I will hear him.

SCHILLER: _The Robbers_.

Gladly do we now exchange the dank atmosphere of Saint Cyprian's cell,
and the horrors which have detained us there so long, for balmy air,
genial sunshine, and the boon companionship of Dick Turpin. Upon
regaining the verdant ruins of the ancient priory, all appeared pretty
much as our highwayman had left it. Dick wended towards his mare. Black
Bess uttered an affectionate whinnying sound as he approached her, and
yielded her sleek neck to his caresses. No Bedouin Arab ever loved his
horse more tenderly than Turpin.

"'Twill be a hard day when thou and I part!" murmured he, affectionately
patting her soft and silky cheeks. Bess thrust her nose into his hand,
biting him playfully, as much as to say, "That day will never arrive."
Turpin, at least, understood the appeal in that sense; he was skilled in
the language of the Houyhnhnms. "I would rather lose my right hand than
_that_ should happen," sighed he; "but there's no saying: the best of
friends must part; and thou and I may be one day separated: thy
destination is the knacker--mine, perhaps, the gibbet.--We are neither
of us cut out for old age, that's certain. Curse me if I can tell how it
is; since I've been in that vault, I've got some queer crotchet into my
head. I can't help likening thee to that poor gipsy wench, Sybil; but
may I be scragged if I'd use thee as her lover has used her. Ha!"
exclaimed he, drawing a pistol with a suddenness that made his
companions, Rust and Wilder, start, "we are watched. See you not how yon
shadow falls from behind the wall?"

"I do," replied Rust.

"The varmint shall be speedily unearthed," said Wilder, rushing to the
spot.

In another instant the shadow manifested itself in a substantial little
personage, booted, spurred,